China stands firm in response to Google threat

China stands firm as it responds to Google's announcement that it may pull out of China if it can't reach an agreement about censoring content.

Two government officials said Thursday that internet companies must obey the laws of China and help the government steer the country by guiding public opinion.

"China's internet is open," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, according to the Associated Press. "China welcomes international internet enterprises to conduct business in China according to law."

China's Information Office had more words for Google, without mentioning the company by name.

"Our country is at a crucial stage of reform and development, and this is a period of marked social conflicts," said Minister Wang Chen of China's State Council Information Office in an interview posted to the agency's website on Thursday, Reuters reports. "Properly guiding internet opinion is a major measure for protecting internet information security."

Internet businesses must adhere to "propaganda discipline," he said.

The agency listed five Chinese websites that have failed to adequately censor crude and pornographic content. "Step up the clean-up," the agency ordered through its website.

Google announced Tuesday that it intended to cease censoring search results on its Chinese-language Google.cn search engine. The company discovered in December that hackers, apparently originating from China, had breached its network and stolen unspecified intellectual property and attempted to gain access to the Gmail accounts of human rights activists involved in China issues.

Subsequent reports have revealed that at least 33 other major technology, financial and defense companies were targeted for attack, as well.

Google indicated that if it can't come to an agreement with Beijing to find some way to provide uncensored search results in a way that wouldn't violate Chinese laws, it was prepared to pull its business out of China.

Google's chief legal officer David Drummond, told public radio's Marketplace program Wednesday evening that residents were delivering flowers and notes of support to its Beijing offices following its announcement.

Reuters reports that one note left for Google read: "Google is the true hero in this silent city."

Another note, referring to China's "Great Firewall" web-censorship, read: "The tallest walls cannot divide people's sentiments. Google: Bye, let's meet on the other side of the wall."

Visitors have also left small glasses of liquor, a Chinese funeral tradition.

Google said the hackers had only succeeded in obtaining minor information from the accounts of two activists, but this did not include the content of the e-mails. Only the date the accounts were opened and the subject lines of some emails were obtained.

The company said that third parties had routinely accessed Gmail accounts of other activists, possibly through phishing attacks designed to trick the users into revealing their login credentials.

According to Reuters, law professor and human rights lawyer Teng Biao wrote on his blog that someone had breached his Gmail account and forwarded his email to another account. A Hong Kong-based human rights group announced that a human rights lawyer in China named Jiang Tianyong had his Gmail account hacked in November.

CNET reported on Wednesday that lawyers at a U.S. law firm were also targets of an attack. The firm of Gipson Hoffman & Pancione are representing the complainant in a $2.2 billion lawsuit against the Chinese government and Chinese companies for allegedly stealing parts of its software for use in China's Green Dam filtering program, part of China's so-called "Great Firewall" censorship system. The firm said employees received emails this week that appeared to come from lawyers within the firm and that included attachments containing malware or links to sites where malware was stored.

China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Yu addressed the implications that it was responsible for the hacks by telling reporters Thursday that Chinese law prohibits hacking.

Yahoo said in a statement Wednesday that it was "aligned" with Google's stance but declined to say whether it would follow suit and sell off its 39 percent stake in the Alibaba Group.

Edited by Nate Lanxon

Comments

Google's timing is interesting - the stand-off has usefully interrupted the difficult negotiations in the Chinese copyright dispute, which threaten to mess up the Google Book Settlement.